


The Hunter and the Maiden

by Adina



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Tale of the Five Series - Diane Duane
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-24
Updated: 2005-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adina/pseuds/Adina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Travelling with a storyteller has its own rewards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunter and the Maiden

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Pouncer

 

 

It had rained, cold rain without letup, for the last three days, and Herewiss was beginning to suspect they had been lost for at least the last two. Freelorn had managed to find a cave for the night, however, so at least they would sleep dry. With a smokeless fire burning in the fire pit they were drying out in a circle around it, hot food and tea warming their bellies. An alert observer might have noticed that the fire appeared to have eyes.

"Give us a story, 'Beren," Freelorn said lazily.

Segnbora turned to look at him, taking another sip of tea. "What do you want to hear?"

"Tell us about someone who's lost," Herewiss said with a mischievous glance at Freelorn. Freelorn scowled back while Segnbora turned her gaze to the fire. (The fire stared back.)

"We're not lost," Freelorn protested. "Only...misplaced." Dritt laughed. Freelorn opened his mouth to say more, but shut it again when Segnbora shifted.

"Some say she was the Goddess herself, in Her aspect as the Maiden," she said quietly, almost meditatively, without looking away from the fire. "Others say that she was a queen of the Steldenes. No one doubts that she was beautiful, and all agree that she hunted the forests in the foothills of the Highpeaks, accompanied by seven youths, some of each sex, each more beautiful than the last, each devoted to her person.

"Whether Goddess or mere queen, no one else dared to hunt her forest for fear of rousing her wrath. But not all who travel know where they are going--" Here she gave Freelorn a glance laced with gentle mockery, "--and one day a hunter wandered into her woods and spied her chasing after the fleet deer, bow in hand, with her youths trailing behind her. At the sight he was filled with admiration, or so we shall name it, and decided that he must meet this maiden and win her friendship.

"The hunter followed the maiden for nine months, often losing sight of her, but never letting her see him. He followed her through winter snows and spring rains, though the long hot days of summer and the lengthening nights, until the evening before the autumn solstice came.

"The next day was the most sacred to any hunter, the first day of autumn, when the red deer may first be hunted again. The hunter had lost the maiden five days previous, but on that evening he found her, bathing in a mountain pool with her companions. Spying her weapons and clothing lying on the bank, he stalked silently closer to them until he was crouched above her bow. He waited, as motionless as only a hunter may be, until she looked up to see him there. He met the maiden's eyes bravely, then smiled at her and seized her bow, fleeing with it into the forest.

"The maiden cried out her rage, charging through the forest after him, changing her companions into hounds that they might better aid her hunt. They hunted him like the deer they would follow in the morning, baying at his heels, but he used every trick that a hunter might learn from his prey, doubling back on his tracks, running across rock and through streams to throw off his scent. He ran from the setting of the sun until its rising, and with the dawn he lost those who would hunt the hunter by running straight into the rising sun, blinding his pursuers.

"Defeated, the maiden allowed her companions to resume their normal forms, and together they turned back to the mountain pool where she had left the rest of her weapons--" Segnbora smiled, dropping out of the storyteller's practiced rhythm into her normal voice to add, "--not to mention her clothing!" Moris sniggered and the fire jumped higher, dancing in what might have been amusement, though Herewiss was never sure what Sunspark understood of human modesty.

"Lying beside her clothes she found her missing bow, with another bow lying next to it along with a quiver of fine arrows. Looking a little further she spied a strange set of clothes hanging from a bush, torn and dirty, but well-made. While she was staring at them, a voice spoke from the pool.

"'Won't you join me?' the hunter asked, lounging full length in her private pool as if it were his own. He stood up and she found that he was an exceedingly well-made man. 'The chase was rather warm, was it not?' she said, beginning to forgive him in light of the sport he had offered on the night when no other prey might be lawfully hunted."

Segnbora looked up from the fire, "Some versions of the tale say that it was not the maiden's bow that the hunter took, but one of her companions, Elios, whose name means Sun in the ancient language of the Steldene, and that on the maiden's return to the pool she found the hunter and Elios sharing with each other in the shallow water, and grew wroth with them, but especially with Elios, until the hunter invited her to join them.

"Perhaps there is some truth to this second version, because both versions agree that the Shadow entered Elios some days or years later, rousing him to jealousy, though whether he wished the maiden or the hunter for himself is not told. Jealousy it is that ever destroys what it desires most to possess, so I think perhaps it was the hunter he desired.

"Elios waited until the maiden was sleeping one day after hunting, lying on the bank of one of the Five Meres, before he approached the hunter. 'The maiden tells me that you have boasted that you are a stronger swimmer than any other of her companions,' he told the hunter. 'Yet I bet that you cannot swim across this lake.'

"The hunter looked across the mere, which while large for a mountain lake was still no match for the ocean, and scoffed. 'I can swim across and back before you dare stick your foot in the water.' Without another word he stripped off his clothing and leaped into the water.

"When the hunter had nearly reached the other side, when his head was only a tiny spot bobbing on the water, Elios woke the maiden. 'The hunter tells me that he is better with his bow than anyone else, better even than you,' he told her. 'He bet me that you couldn't hit that log floating in the water on the other side of the lake.' With an oath the maiden snatched up her bow and let an arrow fly out across the lake. The arrow struck true and the hunter was slain instantly.

"The maiden was grieved over what she had done, over what Elios had tricked her into, but even the Goddess cannot bring the dead back to life. In sorrow she took up the hunter's body from the water and placed him in the sky as the constellation we call the Hunter today."

"And Elios?" Freelorn asked when it appeared Segnbora was finished.

She shrugged. "Him she put in the sky as well, in the shape of a scorpion as reminder of his treachery. Ever the Scorpion follows the Hunter, the one that he had loved, yet never daring to show his face until after the Hunter has set."

***

**Author's Note:**

> Segnbora's tale may--I hope!--seem rather familiar. It doesn't precisely follow any version I've read, but borrows from several, plus a few related myths.


End file.
